How to Save a Life
by AllThingsKlaine
Summary: AU: in which Kurt and Blaine never met and fell in love with other people. Blaine is struggling with the loss of his partner and is just about hanging on.   Could  be triggering; mentions of suicide.
1. Chapter 1

I rolled over as the light began to peek in through the gap in the curtains. Blindly, I felt around in the cold side of the bed. Breathing a sigh I cracked my eyes open, once again, to the bitter reality of life after losing Cameron. It had been almost a year since I had lost Cameron but every morning, when I woke up, it felt as fresh as it had the day that we made the decision to turn off the life support machine.

We had been inseparable, as much best friends as lovers. From the day that we were paired up in our senior year science lab we grew to love each other. And love each other we did, I loved everything about him. The way his cheeks had dimples when he smiled, the pitch of his voice, the thousands of colours in his eyes. The day he left the world everything became frivolous. Nothing seemed worth it any more, I couldn't imagine doing _anything_ without him. It felt like I was re-learning how to _be_ without him around me.

Rubbing my eyes, I swung myself to the side of the bed and pushed my feet into my slippers. The digital clock on the bedside cabinet flashed 6:04am. I was running kind of late, but I didn't care, I planned on calling into work sick again, anyway. I heaved myself off my bed and headed for the phone in the living room, picking my diary out of my satchel as I passed.

I punched the number for Personnel into the phone without looking at what I was doing, I'd called them so often recently that I didn't _need_ to look anymore. I pushed the phone into my ear and flicked through the pages of my diary.

"Good Morning, Blaine." Mary chimed on the end of the line.

"How did you know it was going to be me?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"Blaine, don't mock my intelligence. You've called in every morning for the last week." She was, of course, right. It was coming up for Cameron's birthday - the first without him - and I'd not really felt like being around anyone but myself.

"Well then, you'll know what I am going to say to you, too." I breathed, fast losing the little patience I had at 6am.

"Yes. But I think that you need to be careful, honey. Mr Dexter isn't very happy that you've called in sick for most of this week."

"I don't imagine he is very happy, Mary, but I don't plan on coming in today."

"You might get a call from him, sweetie."

"Tell him that he is happy to call me. Tell him that I will be in bed, crying myself sick because tomorrow is the first time I am going to have to suffer through my dead boyfriends birthday. The first time that I am not going to wake up to him propping himself up on his chin and blowing on the tip of my nose until I wake to sing him happy birthday." I'd already said too much to a woman that I only spoke to over the phone, but I was furious at no one in particular and I needed to scream at someone. "The first goddamned time that he is not going to be around to wish a Happy fucking Birthday to."

"Oh." I clicked the phone off and threw it across the room before I could listen to her empty apologies. I was so tired. Tried of listening to people I barely knew tell me they were sorry, tired of being the subject of pity, tired of not being able to do a damned thing about any of it.

I caught my breath and managed, almost unsuccessfully, to stop myself crying after a few minutes. Remembering where I was, I looked down into my lap at my diary.

**Thursday 30th September  
><strong>1 Year Decision

I felt sick looking at the words. To anyone else it meant nothing, but to me it held the future. September 30th last year, three months after Cameron's death, I decided that I was going to give myself one year. One year to see if I could make my life work without my soul mate. One year before I would kill myself.

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><p>On Friday I woke early, as usual. I had put the phone by the bed the previous night and reached over to grab it from the bedside cabinet. I dialled the number for Personel without opening my eyes and put the receiver to my ear.<p>

"Morning, Blaine." Mary said. Her voice wasn't as chipper as it had been yesterday. Maybe she remembered what I had said to her or maybe the monotony of answering phones at 6am everyday was catching up with her.

"I won't be coming in today, Mary." I responded.

"I didn't think so, sweetie. I spoke to Mr Dexter personally yesterday."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I told him about your situation. He said that he remembered last year when it happened and he was okay with allowing you some time out to arrange your thoughts." I sighed audibly into the phone. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I felt about that.

"Thanks, Mary." I put the phone down and rolled into my pillow. I wasn't thankful, I didn't want special treatment. That felt like I was trivialising Cameron - using him to my advantage. I just wanted to be a normal guy calling in sick everyday for a week. If that meant getting disciplined then so be it.

I tried my best to forget the conversation with Mary as I got up and made myself be normal. I managed to get to the bathroom before I broke down. Cameron and I had this stupid tradition of writing a birthday message to each other on the bathroom mirror in toothpaste. It was ridiculous, it made a mess and wasted toothpaste but it made us smile on the morning of our birthday. Staring at the mirror from the doorway I felt a familiar tightness in my chest. The kind of tightness that always prefaced a vicious onslaught of tears. I braced myself against the door frame but slipped down to the ground anyway. My heart pounded, my breathing was short and shallow and tears were streaming over my cheeks uncontrollably. I pulled my knees to my chin and leaned my back against the smooth door frame to ride the wave.

"I miss you." I whispered to the empty room. Just as a second wave threatened to hit the phone started ringing. I tried to pull myself together as I headed back to the phone, glancing at the clock as I did so - 6:45am. A phone call at this time was either bad news or...

"Hello?" I answered.

"Morning, Blaine. I hope I didn't wake you." Cameron's mother knew better than to worry that she had woken me.

"Don't be silly, Lillian. You know that I'm up at this time." I let out a breathy laugh.

"I just wanted to speak to someone who knew how I was feeling. Derek is away on business so I'm alone." How Cameron's Dad could leave Lillian alone on today, of all days, I didn't know. Lillian and I had always been close, our personalities were pretty similar so we were naturally drawn together when we lost Cameron. We had promised each other that we would call each other, no matter the time, when we felt our lowest.

"I'm glad you did call, Lillian." My voice cracked. "I was hoping you would."

"It's stupid, especially because he hadn't lived at home for seven years, but I went to his room this morning when I woke up." I could hear the sadness coming from her heart. "We used to wake him up by singing Happy Birthday. I did...I sang it this morning." After this we both just sat on the phone crying. It was hard to know what to say because who was I to try to inspire hope when I barely knew how to go on myself?

"Lillian?" I coughed when it seemed like neither of us would even speak again.

"Yes?" She whispered.

"Can I confess something to you?"

"Of course you can, honey." I had no idea what I was doing, what had made me decide that this was the right time to confess something that had been my best kept secret for almost seven months. All I knew is that the words were tumbling out of my mouth before I could even consider them.

"Last September, three months after we let him go, I decided something." I stopped for a moment, almost managing to reconsider. "I decided that I was going to give myself a year to figure out a life without Cameron. A year to fix myself before I..."

"Blaine," her sentence was lost in a blur of muffled, pained sobs. How could I have just said that to a woman who had, not a year ago, lost her son? My finger was on the button to hang up the call just as Lillian spoke again. "Blaine. Please, _please_ get some help, baby."

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><p><strong>Authors Notes: <strong>This is my first _serious_ fic so I hope this goes over well. I'm super self concious/ self critical so I was so cautious of putting it up. I'd love honest reviews so don't hold back!


	2. Chapter 2

At nine o'clock my door bell chimed. I really didn't want to speak to anyone, especially after the conversation with Lillian, so I shoved my head under my pillow and pretended to be asleep. I'd been wrapped in my duvet, crying, since I hung up the phone so I imagined that I wasn't decent anyway. After a few minutes the bell rang again, this time quite frantically. It didn't seem like I was going to get any peace, so I hauled myself out of bed and stomped to the intercom.

"What?" I yelled into the receiver.

"Blaine! Thank God." Lillian sniffled at the other end. As soon as I heard her voice I buzzed the door open and dashed to meet her in the stair well. When the two of us met in the corridor she immediately enveloped me in a huge hug.

"Sweetheart, what are you thinking?" I could see that she had been crying, I hoped it hadn't been because of me. The weight of the situation suddenly threatened to bowl me over and I leaned into her shoulder and let everything spill over. We sunk to the cold, dirty floor of the apartment building and held onto each other. Everything was hitting me so hard that I felt I was close to breaking in Lillian's arms - the guilt for telling the mother of my dead boyfriend that I was planning on killing myself, the grief that I still expected him to walk around the corner and fix things, the desperation for a way to make myself better.

"I just don't know how to live without him, Lillian." I gasped, pulling away from her so that I could look her in the eye.

"Oh, Sweetheart." Her cold hands touched my face and brushed away the tears that were still pouring. "Why haven't you told anyone until now?" I couldn't answer her. I didn't know why I hadn't tried to ask for help before now. Deep down, I had known ever since I picked the day that I needed to talk to someone. Honestly, I think that I was too proud to ask. I had never been the sort of person to ask anyone to help me with anything, even when I had been bullied and beaten at school I held my head high until someone else noticed what was going on. I wanted to be able to fix things for myself.

After a few minutes of silence, Lillian grabbed my hand and pulled me back to my feet. Quietly and with the care only a mother could take, she led me back to my bed and tucked me under my duvet.

"You've had a tough morning," She cooed, sweeping a few stray curls from my forehead. "See if you can get a bit of sleep. I'll be here when you want to talk." It didn't take long for sleep to take me under.

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><p>I woke, with a start, what felt like an eternity later. I stared straight ahead at the ceiling tiles above my bed. I knew exactly how many were there (fifteen in the square above my bed, eighty five in the whole room), I'd counted them so often on the nights when I couldn't sleep and the mornings when I didn't want to get out of bed. My eyes stung from the tears of the previous hours and my cheeks felt raw.<p>

I scooted to the side of the bed, swinging my legs to the side, and put my face into my hands. Desperately, I tried to grasp for the details of what had happened between nine o'clock this morning and now. Everything seemed like such a blur. Just as I started to cry again the door to the bedroom clicked open. It took me by surprise - I couldn't remember if Lillian had left or not.

"I thought that I heard you wake up." She smiled at me and handed me the steaming cup of tea she was carrying. I didn't deserve her to be treating me so nicely, not after the way I had treated her on one of the hardest days she had had to deal with since losing her son.

"I'm so sorry, Lillian." My voice cracked as I spoke but I willed myself not to cry again. "For everything."

"I know, baby." She brushed her hand on my cheek. She'd always treated me like her second son, ever since Cameron had first introduced me to her as his boyfriend. She'd brought me soup when I was sick, done my laundry when I was busy with work and just helped out at any opportunity she could. The way she was looking at me now felt like she was looking right into my soul. I knew that she wasn't going to leave until we had discussed my confession from this morning.

"Can we go into the lounge?" I asked, standing up from the bed. Lillian followed suit, grabbing my hand reassuringly as we crosssed the room to the door.

Wordlessly we decided that we were to sit next to each other on the large couch for this conversation. Though, normally, we would have sat opposite each other. I looked at her for a few minutes before I could work out what to say, studying her face. It wasn't until now that I noticed just how much she had aged in the last seven months. Her once youthful face now had frown lines and crows feet, her mouth had tiny lines crawling away from the lips and her skin seemed to have paled in colour. It was never more evident than today, when she had either not had the time to put on her make up or she had cried most of it away. I didn't know how I could look at this broken shell of a mother and talk about how I had been planning a way to kill myself. I suddenly felt like the smallest man in the world.

"I don't remember what his laugh sounded like." I said, finally. "I don't remember what it sounded like when he said my name, or when he yelled at me for leaving my socks on the floor or when he told me my favourite show was on. I don't remember the difference between his real tears and the tears he cried when we watched a sad movie. I don't remember, Lillian."

"Blaine." There was a pity in her voice that I didn't think I had ever heard. She looked at me for a while, seemingly not knowing what to say to me. Understandably so. I took the silence as a signal for more talking.

"I honestly don't know how I am supposed to be without him. We fit together like we had been made for each other and I feel like I'm not supposed to keep on _being_ if he can't." My eyes welled again. "I don't _want_ to keep on being if he can't."

"I know how you feel." The weight of her words washed over me. I'd considered that Lillian had maybe felt the same way as I did, worse even, but I'd never expected her to admit it. Mothers had this way of pretending that there was nothing wrong when, in reality, everything had fallen apart. "I mean that, Blaine."

"But, how do you do it Lillian?"

"I go to a therapist twice a week, a support group once a week and I talk to people - other mothers - online." She took my hand in hers, again. "I want you to go to a group, baby. Or a therapist, or something. I'm so, so, glad that you told me what was going on. But I can't fix you. I wish I could, but I really can't. The only thing that I can do is promise you that I _will not_ lose another son."

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><p><strong>Authors Notes: <strong>I'm still feeling terribly self concious about this. I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, I know it was quite a heavy one. Hopefully things will start looking up for Blaine from here. Maybe?


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: **I want to pre-warn you about this chapter - it's going to be pretty heavy and potentially triggering. Please, please bear that in mind before you read it.

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><p>The telephone receiver felt cold against my face as I pressed it into my ear. My hands were shaking and my heart felt like it was beating a thousand times faster than it should be. All I could think about was what I was going to say when someone answered my call.<p>

"Hello, I'm James from Hope Line." My stomach turned as I listened to the man on the end of the phone. My mind raced with all the things that had brought me to this point. I couldn't speak.

"If you're still there please hold the line. I'm here to help you." How had I become this person? I could barely recognise myself any more. I felt so weak, so broken, so damaged.

"You're very brave to have made this call." I didn't feel brave. I stood up from the couch and walked to the mirror hanging over the fireplace. My eyes were swollen with tears, my cheeks red and my hair was stuck up in every direction. Who was this person?

"I don't know who I am any more." I said to James, the faceless operator of a crisis helpline.

"Hi, there." He said, he sounded relieved to hear me speak. "Can I ask you your name? You don't need to tell me if you don't want."

"I'm Blaine." What did I have to lose by telling him who I was?

"Hello, Blaine. I'm James." I could almost hear a smile in the way he spoke. "Do you want to talk? Or do you just want me to stay on the line with you?"

"I have no idea." I honestly didn't know what I was thinking when I picked up the phone and dialled the number. There were probably more deserving people who needed to talk to James way more than I did.

"That's okay. Shall we see if we can work it out together?"

"Sure." I drifted back to the couch and pulled a cushion onto my lap - hugging it into my chest. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to start this conversation, so I stayed silent.

"How has your day been today?" James asked after a few minutes.

"Terrible. But not my worst." Was that what you were supposed to say when you were talking to a member of a crisis team? "Maybe I shouldn't have called you?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, I should call you on my worst day." My mind played with the idea of my _worst_ day. I couldn't really distinguish between good days and bad days anymore.

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that you did call." James said.

"I guess. I don't really know what I am supposed to say." I admitted.

"There's no etiquette. There's nothing that you _have _to say and there's nothing that you aren't allowed to to say. All we do _have _to do is work through the reasons that you decided that you were going to call us today and find a way to make it better."

"What if you can't make it better?" I asked.

"I'm going to try my hardest, Blaine." His voice was oddly reassuring. "I'm not saying that you are going to be the worlds happiest man when we hang up the phone, but we are going to find a way to get you on the path to that." I knew that he was trained to say all these things, but there was something in the _way_ that he said them that made me believe him. I held my breath for a moment.

"Today is my boyfriend's birthday." I said. "He died almost a year ago."

"I'm so sorry to hear that." The hopeful tone in his voice seemed to dim a little. "What was he like?"

"He was my other half, he completed me. When he was around you didn't need to have a light on in the room, his personality just lit everything up." Tears started to roll down my cheeks. "He had a thousand different smiles, the colour of his eyes was infinite and when he laughed everyone else did too."

"He sounds like an amazing person."

"He was." My stomach twisted as I spoke. "I miss him so much."

"There's no shame in missing someone, Blaine."

"I'm not ashamed. I don't know what I am. I can't find a word to describe how I feel anymore. It feels like I am looking at myself from the outside with a list of options and I just can't find the right one to choose because, without Cameron, there is no _right _option." My breath caught at the back of my throat and I had to gasp through the tears. I was suddenly aware of how numb I'd felt for the past few months.

"Blaine, you _have _chosen the right option. You chose to speak to someone. You asked for help and, together, we are going to make a plan for what help you need. Okay?" I had no idea what a crisis line operator was supposed to sound like, but James sounded so desperate to help me. The fact that a complete stranger could, seemingly, care so much flicked a switch in the back of my head.

"I decided, seven months ago, that I was going to give myself a year to work out a way to live without him." No matter how many times I said it out loud, it still sounded like a pathetic thing to say. "I don't know how to live without him, I don't think I ever will." I leaned over and pulled a tissue from the box on the coffee table.

"Do you think that's a good decision?"

"I have no idea. All I know is that my life isn't working without Cameron. I can't keep trying. Everything reminds me of him. Everything." I could feel myself getting angry. "The colour of the walls in my apartment, the smell of the bed sheets, the sound of the car door closing, the supermarket, the weather, my reflection. Everywhere I go, everything I do, reminds me of him. There is nothing that I can do that makes sense any more."

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><p>"James and I decided that I should go to a group therapy session - I don't like the idea of a formal, one on one therapist right now. I might end up there in time, but that's not how I want to start this out." I stopped to catch my breath. "I actually feel hopeful, Lillian. I feel it like a little candle somewhere inside of me. It's not too strong right now, but it's still flickering."<p>

"Oh, sweetheart. I'm so glad that you made that phone call. I'm so proud of you."

"Thank you, Lillian, for listening to me this morning." My stomach flipped over, again. "If it wasn't for you, I don't think that I could have done it."

"Sweetheart, it was all you. I was just the one that listened. You wanted to help yourself, if you didn't then you wouldn't have told me what you were thinking. That's the strength that you need to keep inside of you."

"I still want you to know that I appreciate it." I sighed. "I'm gonna go now. I have a few things to do before I go back to bed."

"Okay. Remember that I am always at the end of the phone if you need me. No matter what time of day."

"Lillian?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, honey."

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>I know that it was a very dialogue heavy chapter and I played with it a lot, but I felt like this was the best way to write what was happening. I appreciate that people like more descriptive things as opposed to a lot of dialogue but I wanted to put a lot of importance on the fact that Blaine had decided to call Hope Line. Having said that, I didn't want to make it too long, hence my decision to cut it where I did.

I'd love reviews on this chapter, so feel free to be open and critical with me.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: **I apologise profusely for the ridiculous length of time between this chapter and the previous one. The only excuse I can offer is that I don't watch Glee any more. Lame, I know. I do keep coming back to this when I want to write though!  
>I hope you enjoy this and I have at least two chapters worth of stuff already lined up if there are still people reading this. As usual, trigger warning!<p>

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><p>I'd forgotten to turn off my alarm the night before, so I woke with a start at 6am. Sighing, I reached over and smashed the off button and lay looking up at the ceiling tiles, again. After a few seconds of staring I decided that I was done with counting the ceiling tiles and rolled to the side of the bed. I'd obviously kicked my slippers off at the doorway last night so I hopped across the cold wooden floor and slid into them as I clicked the door open. I grabbed the phone and wandered towards the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee. The kettle bubbled as I, once again, dialled the number for Personnel.<p>

"Good Morning, Personnel." This time the voice didn't belong to Mary.

"Um, Morning." It wasn't like I even liked Mary, but I was kind of disappointed that it wasn't her. I guess because she knew a little about me, with this new woman I would have to explain everything over again. "This is Blaine Anderson."

"Oh, yes. Good Morning, Blaine." Suddenly her voice changed from a phone voice to something else. "How're you this morning?"

"Um." I sounded so dumb. "Fine, thanks. I just...I need to speak to someone about a sabbatical?"

"Okay, I'm going to put you on hold while I transfer you to someone else." Before I could say anything else the phone clicked over and music started to play. As I waited I grabbed my mug from the cupboard and started to make my coffee and sidled through everything I'd discussed with James the day before. A sabbatical was a good idea, we'd agreed. This was the first step to getting better.

"Good Morning, Adam speaking." The voice came just as I dropped my spoon into the sink and took my first sip.

"Morning, this is Blaine Anderson." I coughed, as the hot coffee slid down my throat. "I need to speak to someone about taking a sabbatical."

"Okay, Blaine." Adam replied, all business. "For now I'm only going to be able to make a request for this. I'm going to need to ask you some questions first." Suddenly my eyes prickled with tears and butterflies danced in my stomach. I cleared my throat.

"Okay?"

"Okay, what is the reason that you are applying for sabbatical?" He asked. I had no idea what I was supposed to say. I wondered if I should, maybe, have spoken to my doctor first or something. My hands started shaking.

"Well, I guess there's some stuff in my file or something? About, well, my situation. I guess?" There was audible typing and clicking as Adam pulled up my file.

"Oh, I see. Yes." I prepared myself for the sudden sympathetic tone I was so used to hearing from people. "Okay, well. I'm not certain if this will qualify you for sabbatical, really." His voice was stone cold. I didn't want the sympathy, because I was sick of hearing it, but there wasn't even any empathy. Nothing.

"Right? So, what, do you need me to get some papers from my doctor or something?"

"Well, with it being so long since your loss we might need some proof that it's still affecting your ability to work."

"So long?" My fear and uncertainty had suddenly changed to anger. This guy knew nothing about me, I'd never spoken to him before, never even met him. But yet he seemed to think that a year was a long time and I would have completely forgotten about my boyfriend in that time.

"Sorry?"

"You suggested that a year is a very long time and that I should have forgotten all about my partner in that time." I couldn't mask the fury I was feeling. "You seem to think that you know all about my situation. You are applying a blank form on your computer to me and assuming that I fit into your boxes."

"I.."

"Let me tell you something, Adam. When you lose someone you love as deeply as I loved my boyfriend you never feel whole again. I still feel, right now, the exact same way as I felt the day that the machines that were keeping my partner alive were turned off. I hope that you never have to experience the pain of losing the person that makes you understand why you were put on the planet. I hope that you never have to feel so irrevocably broken. I wouldn't wish my pain on anyone." I paused momentarily and realised that I was crying. "So I'm sorry that you think that in a year I will have forgotten that he even existed, but I haven't."

"I'm sorry." His voice was even and controlled, still in business mode. "Please, try and get us some papers so that we can process your sabbatical. Feel free to drop them into the office or mail them to us. We'll try and be in touch as soon as we can." The phone clicked off and I threw it onto the counter top. I'd not even noticed that I'd dropped my coffee cup while I was on the phone and steaming liquid was pooling around my slippered feet. I crouched down and pulled the cupboard beneath the sink open to grab a rag. As I did so a bucket fell out. There was a note tacked to the front written in Cameron's handwriting.

**"I do this for our wedding fund"**

I stared at the note unblinking as tears rolled down my cheeks, remembering. We'd joked that the only way that we would ever be able to afford to get married, or even engaged, would be if I'd washed cars in my underwear. I'd laughed so much that night on the couch, in his arms, that I cried. A few weeks later I actually did wash our car, and when I took the bucket out of cupboard I found his note. I'd not even thought about washing my car since we lost him, so I'd obviously not seen it since. I collapsed down into the pooling coffee and tugged my knees up to my chest.

How had I ever felt hopeful yesterday? How could I ever imagine a life where every memory didn't knock me over like a bullet train? I lay there, soaked in the coffee and thought about going back on the plan I'd made with James yesterday. I didn't see how I would ever feel whole again.  
>After ten minutes I remembered that I had some pills in the medicine cabinet. I heaved myself from the floor and threw off my wet slippers. The dripping bottoms of my pyjama pants dragged along the floor making a wet trail behind me all the way to the bathroom. The cabinet was mirrored and as I pulled it open I saw myself in the reflection. I braced myself on the sink and stared into the reflection in the opposite door. I could see the pill bottles lined up in the open half of the cabinet, but I couldn't imagine taking them. I leaned over the sink and retched into the bowl.<p>

Looking up, I screamed. I ran back to the kitchen and grabbed the phone again. I punched in the number for Hope Line and waited for someone to answer.

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>I apologise for the amount of dialogue again. I'll pre-warn you that the next chapter is like this too. However, not so much in the following one! As usual, I encourage honest and critical reviews.


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